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and submit new programming code to a shared location. As one may expect from the
Foundation, it's a very collaborative setup. Once inside their instance, a user can more-or-less do whatever they want; install MediaWiki, run a bot, set up web pages for tools, whatever. But most people on the Toolserver don't need "beefy"; we just need a web server that will let us run our tools and access the databases holding information about Knowledge and the other projects. If someone needed "beefy," they'd have set up their own server ages ago. While Labs is all swishy and fancy (and presumably has less downtime than the Toolserver), it's an environment we're all completely unused to, and perhaps worst of all, it provides no access to the Wikimedia databases, which will prevent most tools and bots from working at all. Supposedly this functionality will be available at some point in the future ... I don't think either organization fully realizes how much Knowledge, the Commons, and all the other projects rely on the tools provided by the Toolserver ... most of the tools and bots we take for granted will suddenly cease to function.
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total downtime, have caused considerable disruption to the
Toolserver's usual functions. Those functions are highly valued by many Wikimedia communities, comprising data reports on the relationships between pages, categories, images, and external links; support for Wiki Loves Monuments, OpenStreetMap and GLAM projects; talk-page archiving services; edit counters; and tools aimed at easing many automated administrative processes such as the account and unblock request processes on several major wikis, as well as cross-wiki abuse detection.
630:. Some accused others of affording a God-like status to the Knowledge co-founder, while Wales accused his detractors of bad faith. This incident has refocused attention on the debate between quality and quantity, and because the site has just reached the two-million article mark, the article notes that making an original contribution is harder. The debate between inclusionists and deletionists is framed as one between newer members of the project, and older members who understand that some of the deletions they have made are wrong.
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652:- The article presents the view that administrators are divided into deletionists and inclusionists, two diametrically opposed schools of thought about the inclusion of content into Knowledge. The article reviews the deletionist and inclusionist arguments, and states that "notability debate has spread across the discussions like a rash". There is a focus on the deletion of stubs - in particular, the debate over
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maintenance to continue functioning; and is dependent on other ancient, outdated technologies like NFS. Whereas
Kubernetes has a rapidly-growing userbase; is being very actively developed; and is basically the current technology leader in the space. So, they're consolidating all of their eggs into the basket that doesn't have a Sun logo on it, and also happens to be superior in all ways that matter.
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I'm unaware of any serious arguments that we should welcome paid advocates into
Knowledge to edit articles about which they have a financial conflict of interest. (To be clear, there are a few people who argue in favor of that, but their arguments are so implausible that it is difficult to take them
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One of the biggest problems in this area is a lack of precision in talking about this. Even in your question, you say "paid editing" but that's much too broad and tends to confuse the issue quite badly. If a university decides to encourage their professors to edit
Knowledge as a public service as a
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The "bright line" rule is simply that if you are a paid advocate, you should disclose your conflict of interest and never edit article space directly. You are free to enter into a dialogue with the community on talk pages, and to suggest edits or even complete new articles or versions of articles by
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How Labs functions seems to be almost completely different from how the
Toolserver functions. We've been told multiple times that Labs will provide lots of "beefy" infrastructure for tools development; ... users will be able to set up virtual machines, or "instances" ... to handle their development,
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that there is a simple reason for the recent degradation in performance: the
Toolserver's hardware was not added to in 2012, while more tools have been written and more people are using the tools. The German chapter, he says, has refused his request to extend the hardware infrastructure, giving only
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I've been an advocate of this because I think it makes a lot of complicated problems vanish completely. First, it avoids the sort of deep embarrassment and bad press for the client that has become common. Second, it answers the concerns that some people have about how to interact with
Knowledge as
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Indeed the
Toolserver migration was bumpy (maybe even unnecessarily so), and we did lose some tools along the way, but I think it's very clear that Toolforge and Cloud Services (then "Tool Labs" and "Wikimedia Labs" respectively) have become a huge improvement over the Toolserver and are continuing
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is an external service hosting the hundreds of webpages and scripts (collectively known as "tools") that assist
Wikimedia communities in dozens of mostly menial tasks. Few people think that it has been operating well recently; the problems, which include high database replication lag and periods of
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Both are relevant. If you're a PR professional editing on behalf of your client, then hiding behind the excuse that you're only making NPOV edits doesn't cut it with me at all. There's simply no reason to do that, when working with the community openly, honestly, and editing only talkpages is more
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was closely involved in writing the "unblock ticket request system" (UTRS), which allows blocked usersâincluding innocent parties caught up in range-blocksâto appeal their blocks. UTRS, created only recently and now officially mandated by the Foundation, is written for the Toolserver, not the Labs
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You've made a distinction between an employed academic versus a PR professional â the first editing in their free time in the area of their expertise and the second as a tainted advocate who shouldn't edit directly at all. Does 'advocacy' lie in the person (and their context) or only the person's
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In my reading, WP:COI at least allows uncontroversial or minor changes, and at most permits any non-promotional edits, even major ones, although they are "strongly discouraged". From the 2009 paid editing RfC to the 2012 COI RfC, a direct prohibition of paid editing has failed to gain consensus.
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provides tool hosting via Kubernetes (as well as Grid Engine, both simultaneously, but separately (either/or) and with each platform having different features available to tool authors). Sun Grid Engine is ancient, outdated technology; hasn't released an update in 6 years; requires active, manual
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From the beginning, it was something I thought we should pay attention to and prevent to the maximum extent possible. I remember the feeling of the Internet community â the appropriate cynicism â when Yahoo introduced a system whereby you could pay them for expedited review of your website for
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of servers to Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE); so it was almost by coincidence that the German chapter was prompted to take on responsibility for the project. WMDE has since invested heavily in Toolserver infrastructure and its operationsâan unusually global role for a chapter, resulting from the
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In addition to Wikimedia content, Kiwix now contains TED talks, the Stack Exchange websites, all of Project Gutenberg, and many YouTube educational channels. Anne and Emmanuel chatted about how video and smart phones are changing the offline landscapeâand where Kiwix plans to go from
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In 2011, the Foundation announced the creation of Wikimedia Labs, a much better funded project that among other things aimed to mimic the Toolserver's functionality by mid-2013. At the same time, Erik Möller, the WMF's director of engineering, announced that the Foundation
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an advocate. It's almost impossible (assuming you behave in a polite manner) to get into trouble suggesting things on a talk page. And finally: it works. There are easy means to escalate issues if you are having a problem. There is simply no excuse for editing directly.
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When was the first time paid editing came onto your radar? When you conceived of Knowledge, did you ever imagine that editors would be financially compensated for their work, or that companies would employ people to influence
569:, a feature that, while less used nowadays (because no-one's been interested in writing it, and WikiProjects as a whole seem to be a lot less active, with a few major exceptions), would be a regular feature for most of the
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has threatened legal action over spelling mistakes in the Tajik language Knowledge; the committee "warns the errors violate the country's state-language law and therefore make Knowledge legally liable for the mistakes."
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However, for our part, we will not continue to support the current arrangement (DB replication, hosting in our data-center, etc.) indefinitely. The timeline we've discussed with Wikimedia Germany is roughly as follows:
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Yet you've described those who support or tolerate paid editing as an extreme minority. Do you agree that the bright line rule is not policy? If it's not, why do you think the community hasn't implemented it yet?
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DaB is the volunteer who administers the Toolserver, and who in the process has acquired unique expertise for running the system. (WMDE has also contracted Marlen Caemmerer to assist in Toolserver administration
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particular nature of its revenue streams and German charity laws. There has been in-kind support from the Wikimedia Foundation, mostly in the form of database replication and space in its Amsterdam data centre (
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You've been the most visible and strident promoter of the "bright line" rule prohibiting direct editing by paid editors. What influenced your thinking around this practice, and why do you think it is so
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There doesn't appear to be an update, but as the original source says, "It remains unclear whether or even how Tajik authorities could potentially take legal action against Knowledge".
245:(aka "Kelson") was featured in this issue, but given readers might not be familiar with Kiwix, I think we'd be wise to take our sample from the "What Kiwix is" part of the interview:
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Paid advocacy, a lawsuit over spelling mistakes, deleting Jimbo's article, and the death of Toolserver: What tales echo in these hallowed halls.
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possible inclusion in their directory. Allegedly, such review would be neutral with no guarantees, but many people quite properly had doubts.
195:, which has either aged terribly or was always odd. Moving on, though, newswise, there's two things worth pulling out from this month. From "
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listing replacements, some of them without all the same functionality, that could be used after Toolserver's final shutdown in 2014.
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to package articles into an open source .zim file that can be read by the special Kiwix browser. Since Kiwix was released in 2007,
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provided is exactly what you'd probably expect if you're familiar with modern containerized service platforms: Toolforge
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It was an awkward transition that would take years and a ridiculous amount of recoding to fully recover from. There's an
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to put up QR codes linking to Knowledge pages for various landmarks, and was paid for it, which is... rather borderline.
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However, Jimmy Wales sets out a clear distinction that helps explain how to judge what is and isn't acceptable. Here's
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Secondly, this was the start of the problematic phasing out of Toolserver in favour of Wikimedia Labs, as reported in
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part of their paid duties, that's a wonderful thing (so long as they steer clear of advocacy!). It's paid
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Paid advocacy, a lawsuit over spelling mistakes, deleting Jimbo's article, and the death of Toolserver
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that it's WMF's decision, on its end, to discontinue services to Toolserver at some point:
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It was obvious even then that there are some people who are willing to act immorally.
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That said, our reporting was out of date even then. As documented on the Meta page
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created a one-sentence article about a popular gathering spot in South Africa,
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However, we did explain the disaster that inevitably did ensue in our report:
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Wind down new account creation on toolserver by Q2 of 2013 calendar year
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dozens of languages of Knowledge have been made available as .zim files
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For the only-minimally-curious, the TL;DR version of the blog link
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the Toolserver financially, but would continue to provide the same
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proposal for formalising crossovers between education and Knowledge
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It was originally set up in 2005 through the donation by
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584:(it now has around eighty-six million). In sadder news,
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Tajikistan Demands Knowledge "correct spelling mistakes"
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There is another migration currently underway from the
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best reflected that strange early period of Knowledge:
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799:If your comment has not appeared here, you can try
191:One of the more baffling things this issue was the
473:allocates just a fraction of last year's funding.
441:Wikimedia Labs vs Toolserver: a comedy of errors?
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296:an interview with Jimmy Wales about paid editing
551:Here's a list of all the tools Toolserver had
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838:describing the reasons for the migration. --
582:Wikimedia Commons reached two million files
639:showed just how much things stay the same:
884:Make sure we cover what matters to you â
650:Delete generation rips encyclopedia apart
288:bring Wikivoyage into Wikimedia continued
578:a WikiWorld comic that was since deleted
506:Decommission toolserver by December 2013
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469:a vague commitment of support. But its
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940:Knowledge Signpost archives 2022-10
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523:environment. Hersfold told the
220:Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
795:add the page to your watchlist
645:Deletionists and inclusionists
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448:would no longer be supporting
418:How did the Toolserver start?
871:15:47, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
848:17:15, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
822:07:48, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
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637:"In the News" for 15 October
611:Jimbo sparks deletion debate
284:failed, from what I can tell
18:Knowledge:Knowledge Signpost
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603:"In the News" for 1 October
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557:15 years ago: October 2007
471:September forward planning
454:as it had done previously.
278:In October 2012, we had a
273:10 years ago: October 2012
313:a sample of the interview
176:5 Years Ago: October 2017
429:valued at US$ 65k a year
588:the death of historian
235:a rather good interview
792:. To follow comments,
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734:Disinformation report
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680:"From the archives" â
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252:2014 profile of Kiwix
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788:from this article's
616:Knowledge wars erupt
480:Future of Toolserver
672:"From the archives"
256:Parsoid wiki parser
887:leave a suggestion
779:Discuss this story
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462:since October 2011
243:Emmanuel Engelhart
233:Secondly, there's
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45:â Back to Contents
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803:purging the cache
764:From the archives
724:News from the WMF
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50:View Latest Issue
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94:PDF download
922:Suggestions
786:transcluded
754:Serendipity
620:Jimmy Wales
546:entire page
487:Erik (WMF)
378:seriously.)
144:X (Twitter)
832:Kubernetes
409:Toolserver
392:effective.
341:important?
209:Tajikistan
185:Tajikistan
82:Share this
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